Coffee Shop
by Sprech4
Summary: The little shop at the edge of the forest isn't as lonely as once thought. Jiroubou x Raiga. AU-centric, in which Orochimaru is still in control of Sound. Chapters added whenever, et cetera.
1. Meeting Over Coffee

"…and a coffee for the other guy."

Jiroubou of the South Gate looked up from his soup with an expression of mild surprise and laid eyes on the shop's only other occupant for the first time since his arrival.

"I'm sorry?"

The other man – tall, dark, and heavily bandaged – merely offered an amused grin in return. "You _are_ the only other one here. It's only polite to do so," he said, "Right?"

The look of surprise faded from the large guard's face, replaced with one of a more quizzical nature. A hint of manners, you say? How highly improbable, and yet curiously pleasing. Such a custom hadn't crossed his mind, but he supposed it did make sense and thus almost brushed it off as mere politeness.

_Almost. _

"Too quiet for your tastes, I suppose?"

Clever boy, this one. The older man could see it in his eyes – piercing, auburn eyes that possessed intelligence that was at once both calculating and horrible. It felt almost invasive, but he still chuckled lightly and took another sip of his coffee. "You would suppose right - but nothing's wrong with starting a conversation, is there?"

"Some of us enjoy the quiet."

His answer came back short and snappy, which caused a frown to cross the man's dark and supple lips. "And some of us find it awkward when in company," he replied in a bit of a huff. "A _quiet_ conversation shouldn't be too much to ask for."

The guard would have replied with a haughty snort and a 'perhaps it is' and the whole thing could have ended right there. But then his coffee arrived – catered by the elderly proprietor of this lonely little coffee shop – and Jiroubou reconsidered. This man, though having just about forced him into a conversation on a day where his pounding head just couldn't take any more, had been _polite_ enough to order him a beverage. It was only _polite_ to oblige. Such was the plight of a gentleman.

"I suppose it's not," he finally responded after staring into his cup for a few moments, "Thank you kindly, mister…"

"Raiga," answered the man, brushing back a strand of deep green hair (it was the oddest shade that Jiroubou had ever seen, to be perfectly honest). "Raiga Kurosuki."  
"Jiroubou," replied the other, holding out his hand. Raiga briefly pondered the absence of a surname, but brushed it off and gave the boy's meaty hand a firm shake. "Jiroubou, then," said Raiga, his expression once again one of mild amusement, "What brings you here? I'm here every now and again, but I don't recognize you."  
Jiroubou rumbled something in the back of his throat and took a sip of coffee. "My first time, actually. I supposed this would be a nice place to stop after a misson."  
"A mission, then?" interjected the owner, who had come to the counter to make sure his customers were playing nice, "Where might you be coming from, lad?"  
Jiroubou's eyes narrowed in thought for a moment. "Rock, sir," he replied, fiddling with the fabric of his shirt and thanking whatever deity he believed in that he hadn't taken his Sound uniform with him on this mission. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him for lying so, but saying which village he was _really_ serving probably wouldn't have gone over too well. The owner nodded his ancient head and returned to the kitchen with a soft "I see", leaving the two missing-nin alone again.

_Mission…_pondered the guard, staring at his coffee again, _How long has it been since I've been sent out alone like this? Once a few months after arriving, once about six years ago…_He shuddered at the thought. A year later, he would lose to that "Pathetic Tub of Lard from Leaf ", spend lord-knows-how-long in some sort of horrible limbo (he couldn't have told you how long even now – time probably didn't even exist wherever he was), and then be revived by some vague jutsu that Lord Orochimaru had apparently concocted. The entire team had gone through the same, except for Ukon. They just couldn't find _enough _of him to revive. Most unfortunate.

_Either way, about six years_, he figured, snapping himself out of his thoughts and taking a sip of his coffee. So long; it was hard to believe he was 19 now. So close to adulthood and yet not _quite_ there - his own, quaint little limbo.

"I suppose you're out for something similar?" inquired Jiroubou, receiving a passive shrug from the other. "Something along those lines," he replied. There was a brief flash in the back of Raiga's mind…a brief, blue flash and the dull throb of nostalgic pain, but the Mist ninja was able to brush it off and continue. "Whenever I do get back, I'm hoping to have a nice, long _funeral_."  
A grin of pure, unbridled excitement spread across Raiga's face, causing Jiroubou to balk somewhat. He should have been used to this sort of thing after spending so much time in the same vicinity as Kidoumaru, but there's really not much that can make one accustomed to insanity.

"That's a rather grim way to look at things."

Raiga looked at the boy in surprise, teal eyes wild and alert in a way that made Jiroubou bite his lip and curse his big, fat mouth. "Grim? No, no! I just _love_ a good funeral. They always bring people together, you see. Everyone's at their best, and everyone's remembering the _good times_ they had with the deceased!" At this point, the older ninja's voice had elevated to something just below a shout, and one could easily hear it quivering with excitement. He leaned closer to the guard and continued. "You must understand what I mean! A funeral is just so wonderful-- an incredible event!"

"…Yes, I understand where you're coming from," Jiroubou said at length, causing Raiga to calm down. It was a relief to see the wild glee gradually leave the man's eyes.. "And indeed, a proper funeral can be a very…_nice_ event."

"A _proper_ funeral?" inquired Raiga, blinking once or twice, "Are you suggesting that something as pure and sacred as a funeral could be soiled?"

"Anything society considers sound can be soiled in some way," grumbled Jiroubou. "I should know; my comrade is a living, breathing example of such."

Raiga blinked again and frowned. "…they don't like funerals, then?"

"No, no. It's that they…well, let's say that they're not a shining example of womanly behavior."

"…I see." The Mist swordsman couldn't help but smile a bit. "Well, I'd say _that's_ a rather grim way to look at things."

Jiroubou paused for a moment, then grinned and uttered a thoughtful hum in the back of his throat. "I suppose it is."

It was Raiga's turn to balk. Something about that boy's grin struck him in an odd way. It had a dark, omnipotent aura to it. _Of course it's grim, _it said, _It's the truth, whether you want it or not. Everything is grim, Raiga._

But, no sir, Raiga was not going to bow to that sort of mentality. "There's always someone like that, isn't there?" he said with a dreamy sort of sigh, "One is tempted to wish every misfortune upon them; even the absence of a decent funeral, hm? But life goes on – they live, you live; they'll die, you'll die. Everything's eventual."

Jiroubou grinned again, but it was different this time. Now it was a grin of honest-to-god amusement, and he even added a hearty chuckle. "My, but you're an odd breed of optimist."

"Is that what you call it, then?"  
"Well, it's one of the closer terms I can find for it."  
"One of them?"  
"Well, there's always '_crackpot_'."

The two of them looked at each other in complete silence. One could just _feel_ the tension filling the room like a thick fog.

And then they were laughing hysterically.

The elderly owner came back after listening to his customer's laughter for a good minute or so. He smiled brightly at the two, beady little eyes gleaming with amusement. "Goodness gracious, it sounds like you two really hit it off!"

Raiga and Jiroubou looked at each other, faces still flushed from the laughter, and then turned back to the owner.

"Yes," answered Raiga, "I believe we did."


	2. Setting Dates

Raiga wasn't there when Jiroubou returned the next day.

Vaguely disappointed, the guard proceeded to spend the next hour or so nursing a cup of coffee at the counter. It wasn't the most amusing way to occupy himself, but he supposed that he might as well use his free time in _some_ way. He hadn't worked his gratuitous ass off to finish the day's duties early for nothing, damn it.

Jiroubou's train of thought slinked back to the previous day. After the rocky beginning, the two ninja had found themselves in a moderately amusing conversation – nothing specific, but of living and learning and 'my, what weather we've been having lately'. The guard had been presently surprised by Raiga – despite the mental instability showing through occasionally (as displayed during the funeral discussion and after Jiroubou had mentioned something about how 'good god, one could be struck dead in that storm'), he had found the Mist ninja to be relatively pleasant to talk to. Relative to Sound, anyway.

"Something the matter, son?"

Jiroubou was shaken out of his reminiscing by the owner's voice. The guard opened his mouth to reply with the usual 'no sir', but paused for a moment and reconsidered. "That man yesterday," he began, staring thoughtfully into his cup, "He mentioned something about coming here-"

"Oh, just every so often," the owner quickly replied, causing Jiroubou to abruptly cut off his sentence and bite his lip in acute aggravation. Now even the _elderly_ were interrupting him. "He's been in often this week, though."

The guard hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat. "The next time you see him, could you-"

"Ask for his schedule. But of course, lad."

Jiroubou looked up from his coffee, piercing auburn eyes meeting the two beady ones in front of him. "…You're very good at this."

"It comes with age. For the record, you're not bad at hiding it," he gave a wry grin, "Just not good enough."

Jiroubou replied with some mixture of a snort and a sharp laugh, to which the elderly owner smiled brightly. "Want I should refill your coffee?"

* * *

Raiga arrived the next day and found there to be no Jiroubou. The Mist nin was moderately disheartened by this, as he had enjoyed the patience of the larger boy. It was…oddly refreshing to talk to someone and not feel as if they were merely 'dealing with him'. The start had been somewhat rocky, but once they had started talking…well, no. There _was_ that one statement in the middle that rubbed him the wrong way. It was rain and thunder and lightning outside, and what had that boy said? Oh, right, something about how it would be difficult going home in this hellish weather because 'good god, one could be struck dead in that storm'. The flash had returned at that point, along with the dull reminiscent pain and god his _heart_ and-

Raiga had only grit his teeth against it and mumbled to himself quietly for a moment (or maybe it was more than a mumble – there always was the problem with keeping track of his volume.), but something about the way his acquaintance had looked at him…no, _inspected_ him afterwards assured Raiga that he had taken note of the reaction.

Well, at least he had been polite enough to let it go.

Though the absence of his new acquaintance was unfortunate, Raiga nonetheless decided to stay for his tea. _It was a chance meeting, _thought the Mist nin,_ He's probably gone back to Rock or something by now._

Raiga briefly surveyed the room and a bit of the disappointment lifted. He liked this place; this lonely little shop on the edge of some forest in some country just outside of Fire. It was quiet, homey, warm, and just…_nice_. He smiled and took a sip of tea.

_I was pretty stupid to think that he'd-_

"Say, boy, you have a schedule to your visits?"

That tea almost came right back up. Raiga's attempts to quell the resulting coughing fit weren't very effective.

"Come back…"

"Son?"

"Er, a schedule?"

"Right, right. I'm only curious, y'see," said the proprietor, absently scrubbing at some spot on the counter, "My customers usually have a method to their madness."

Raiga stopped, chuckled a bit, and then took a moment to consider the question. "Tell him every other day around this time, starting today."

The owner blinked. "_Him_, boy?"

The swordsman just smiled and got up to leave. "Thanks for the tea."

The owner paused, then chuckled softly. "Of course, boy."


	3. Comrades and Chili Powder

Two days later, they saw each other once more.

It was Raiga who arrived first, followed by a particularly fatigued Jiroubou roughly a half hour afterwards. The guard had been noticeably relieved when, the day before, the owner had told him of Raiga's schedule. It meant that Jiroubou's new ritual of working double-time to finish his duties early only had to occur every _other _day. Otherwise, he would still be on duty all day and have to make these visits at night, which was unacceptable by Lord Orochimaru's terms and _blasphemous_ by Jiroubou's. Making his new acquaintance wait all day? How decidedly impolite.

Jiroubou took his seat next to the mist ninja, whose greeting was nothing more than a sly grin and a snide comment.

"You're late."

"_You're_ early.

"Better early than late. _I _like to avoid keeping people waiting."

Jiroubou grumbled a bit - things were starting off rocky again. "Some of us have other business to take care of."

"Precisely why I was early."

Before Jiroubou could make any sort of comment, the owner was there once again to interrupt with a fresh cup of coffee. The guard stared blankly at it as the elderly man slid it over to him, then looked to Raiga. The mist ninja smirked and nodded toward the cup. "To take care of that."

Jiroubou promptly found himself at an impasse. On one hand, he was relieved that Raiga had once again ordered his drink. It meant they were still on good terms - neutral at the least. It would have been a shame to go through all that trouble to find someone who wanted nothing to do with you. On the other hand, however, Jiroubou felt somewhat betrayed by the gesture. Polite conduct dictated that it was _his_ turn to order Raiga a beverage – it struck him as somewhat rude, accepting a drink from someone twice in a row.

Raiga smirked at Jiroubou's dubious expression. "Only trying to be friendly, you know." The larger of the two snorted a soft "thank you". Raiga chuckled, apparently finding this reaction quite amusing. "So high-strung. Now, what about that _nice_ conversation we wanted?"

This time, Jiroubou was the one to laugh. "My, but you jump right into things."

"Well, I didn't come all the way out here to argue."

"Is it that much of a trip, then? Or are you having trouble getting away from your comrades for a bit?"

Raiga balked and looked down at his own beverage. Somewhere in the farthest corner of his mind, he realized that perhaps tea _couldn't_ solve everything. "Comrades…"

"It's like that, sometimes. I'm sure that mine wouldn't have the most pleasurable things to say if I told them I was going to some vague little hut to talk to someone I barely know," continued Jiroubou, running a hand through his mane of ginger hair and momentarily reflected on the arduous task of growing it out after the revival, "'You dumb fatty. If you wanna good place to masturbate, just do it in your room.' Of all the inconsiderate…"

Raiga forced a smile. "I remember when I had comrades."

Jiroubou promptly stopped talking and cursed inwardly for not having paid better attention to Raiga in that short moment. Now the situation was awkward. "I'm terribly sorry."

"No, no. It's alright," Raiga turned his face to Jiroubou. It was such a forlorn expression that Jiroubou felt a weak twinge of pity run through his head. "Most of them were given a wonderful funeral, and for that I am grateful."

What Raiga had neglected to mention was that he had buried most of them himself. Furthermore, he hadn't mentioned the state that he had buried them in: Pre-mortem.

Jiroubou searched Raiga's despondent face. There was no overzealous reaction; no break in the man's mental state; no lashing out or mumbling to himself. He was just reminiscing, and in this case Jiroubou thought that perhaps he could afford to be curious. "Most of them," he ventured, looking at the older man expectantly.

Raiga was silent for a moment, looking intently at his tea. "I'm sure a couple of them are still around."

"And you don't know where they are."

"…No. I know where one _might_ be, at least."

"In that case, I'd think you _do_ have a comrade."

The man's head sunk lower toward his cup, deep green hair blocking view of his eyes. "No…The only reason is because I know who took him from me."

Jiroubou bit his lip. Well, wasn't _this_ a pleasant situation? _Damn my mouth_, he thought ruefully to himself, _and damn my curiosity. How am I going to handle this? Comfort situations are certainly _not _my forté._

As Jiroubou opened his mouth, however, a pair of bowls were there to intervene. Or, more specifically, there was the owner _with _a pair of bowls to intervene. Jiroubou looked at Raiga, who shook his head that no, he had not ordered him the soup. The owner chuckled brightly at their reaction. "It's on the house, boys."

The ninjas looked at him dubiously, though Jiroubou couldn't help but smirk just a bit. "You're awfully good at interrupting, sir." _And awfully good at the timing_, he thought. He almost added that, but quickly checked himself against it.

"Please," said the owner with a wave of his hand, "It's Mr. Yogi. You sure don't have to be _that_ formal, son."

Raiga grinned a bit - much to Jiroubou's relief - and prodded a bit at the contents of his bowl. Miso soup, how quaint. Raiga dipped his spoon in and brought it to his lips…

He paused; blinked; stared at the soup; tasted it again; blinked; and then stared at the owner with something of a bewildered expression. "It has a…"

"A bit of a kick to it, yes?"

"It's not bad or anything, just…different. In a good way."

Jiroubou looked curiously at his acquaintance and took a taste of his own soup, finding Raiga's claim to be true. "What _is _that?"

"That would be the chili powder!"

The two ninja looked at each other.

Mr. Yogi pointed to the kitchen behind the counter, where one could see the basket of powder which hung next to the stove. "It's a wonder what a pinch of the stuff will do. I put it in everything, you know."

Jiroubou blinked. "Everything?"

"Everything."

"…Everything."

"_Everything._"

Jiroubou and Raiga looked down at their drinks, causing Mr. Yogi to chuckle again. "Except for the coffee, of course." And with that, he toddled back to the kitchen, leaving the other two alone. Jiroubou breathed a sigh of relief, but Raiga still stared cautiously at his cup.

"He didn't say anything about the tea…"

* * *

On his return trip to Sound, Jiroubou mulled over the night. It had been perfectly fine after the soup – the two of them had made the same idle conversation as the first meeting and Jiroubou had once more left on good terms.

That wasn't what he was thinking of, however.

He was thinking of Raiga. He was thinking of the look on the man's face when he had told of his comrades – the despondent, almost pitiful look of one who was lost in the most psychological sense of the word. And yet, he wasn't bitter. He wasn't closed. He was _reaching out_. And that, Jiroubou realized, was what had drawn him to Raiga. He was alone, and despite the laws of human nature which dictated such people to be acrimonious hermits, he was perfectly willing – anxious, even – to share with someone. Jiroubou had assumed that he would find such a thing rather pathetic. But…perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps, despite the obvious intellectual issues, this aspect of Raiga struck him as endearing. It was like a single, aspirant little light was still lingering in some far corner of a plane of black pitch.

It was such endearment that made Jiroubou want to reach back; one that made him think that maybe, just maybe, they could touch.


End file.
